Insomnia, Mental Health And Taking It Slow

Where do I start on this? It has been a while since I wanted to write about this but I never got around to doing it. Probably because it is partly scary to admit that you have done something stupid.

For about three months now, I have been suffering from the worst insomnia. Falling asleep is not an issue for me but every single night I wake up somewhere between 1 and 4 am and can’t sleep after. I also can’t take a nap longer than 10 minutes. I usually wake up from a panic attack. It started at the beginning of November when I went back to work and it never left. At first, I thought that this was because I was tired and needed a break so I postponed calling a doctor. I thought if I got a weekend of rest from the baby (who sleeps her nights perfectly), I would bounce back to normal. But things got worse and worse and worse. Everyone around me who knew that I was struggling was sending me to see a doctor but as stubborn as I am, I thought I could deal with this on my own. Clearly, I could not – around Christmas time, it got as bad as sleeping 2 hours per night and when my parents arrived and saw the state I was in, they finally convinced me to get help. Lesson #1 here is that don’t be a stupid moron and refuse help when you clearly need it.

I think I was also scared to be prescribed some kind of drug that would make me dependent on it. I finally got my consultation with the doctor last week and it was much better than I thought – she sent me for some blood tests to check hormones related to breastfeeding and prescribed some temporary sleep pills (which don’t work on me but it is a different story). However, she mentioned that most likely it is anxiety and stress. I can’t fight with that – having a young child, working almost full-time and having no family close is tough. And not only I am trying to do all these things, I am also someone who can’t do them halfway so I had to do them all well and put lots of pressure on myself. Apparently, that sometimes backfires like it did on me. She mentioned that most likely I will need to work with a psychotherapist to resolve the issues that are causing the stress and anxiety and I am all fine with that. As long as it is going to help. Lesson #2 – don’t assume how things will be but do them first and then see what comes out of it. Lesson #3 – you don’t need to do everything perfectly.

I still don’t have a solution for what is happening and my sleep-deprived brain is crawling from one day to the other at the moment. But I am hoping that some kind of solution is there. I am doing blood tests, seeing the doctor and looking into therapy options. I also got a treadmill and started running more and more as until now this was the only thing that I know took me out of the rut. I am taking a break from social media for three months. I am trying to have no screen for three hours before sleep and to ask for help when I need it. And I am hoping that one of these things will eventually work and I will peacefully travel to the kingdom of Morpheus.